


Go West

by reserve



Category: The Breakfast Club (1985)
Genre: Drinking, Future Fic, Hotel Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 06:56:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13048851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reserve/pseuds/reserve
Summary: It's 1991 and Brian Johnson is living the dream. Kind of.





	Go West

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coricomile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coricomile/gifts).



> I wanted to turn some of those "what happens to John Bender" fics on their heads. Enjoy, my friend!
> 
> Historical note: J.T. Moran & Company, the infamous penny stocks/boiler room firm, filed for bankruptcy in 1990, and its ownership was indicted around August of 1991. For the purpose of this story I have fudged the timeline a little bit.

Brian kicked off his trainers and dumped his messenger bag near the sofa by the front door. The Bay Area was in the midst of a coldsnap and he was glad to be back inside after taking the bus from Cupertino. He was not having the best day. There was an issue with the new network protocol he’d been assigned to work on and he felt a mounting dread that another round of code errors would find him on the verge of doing something stupid.

It was 1991 and Brian Johnson was living the dream. Kind of.

“Hey Bri,” called Arthur from the vicinity of his bedroom. “You got a phone call. There’s a message on the counter.”

“Oh, uh, thanks.”

They had a little notepad on the kitchen counter below where the phone hung on the wall. Brian pulled open the fridge and gratefully snagged a can of Coke before picking up the pad. Arthur had been a classmate a MIT. He was a systems engineer at Oracle and probably made a lot more money than Brian, but they didn’t talk about that kind of thing.

Brian squinted down at Arthur’s handwriting trying to make sense of it. He poked his head into Arthur's room. “Did he leave anything other than a name and number?”

“What?”

“Did he.” Brian gesticulated with the pad. “Did he say anything else? It’s just. John isn’t very specific, right?”

“He.” Arthur blushed slightly. “He said he’d really like to see you. When he’s in town.”

“Cool, cool cool. Thanks. Okay.” Brian felt himself flush too. They were basically in San Francisco; something that Brian hadn’t overlooked when he chose work out here and not at IBM in Florida or something. His sexuality wasn’t exactly a secret, and Arthur was good roommate; he didn’t care who Brian brought home with him. And Brian was careful, so Arthur didn’t have to worry about living with him or anything like that, but sometimes it was a little weird to have it spelled out quite so openly.

“John” had left a 212 number to call back. New York City. Brian couldn’t think of a single person he knew who lived in New York, at least no one named John. There’d been...Missy from Radcliffe, and it was possible Jack Lim had moved to NYC after college but Brian couldn’t remember. Sometimes he wished there was some kind of network he could use to keep in touch with old friends from all parts of his life, even high school friends. Some kind of social network, maybe web-based. But the average person wasn’t comfortable with BBSes let alone IRC forums.

He supposed he would just have to call. 3PM in Cupertino made it 6PM on the East Coast.

Brian took the phone off the kitchen wall and carried it into his room; they’d recently gotten an extra long cord and it was entirely worth it. He plunked himself down on his twin bed cross-legged and dialed with determination. He didn’t get around; it was unlikely he was about to reach a one-night stand, but there was always this lingering fear that if he did the nature of the call might take a turn for the harrowing. He was careful, but that didn’t stop him from worrying. Very little stopped him from worrying; but he never wanted to hear “you should get tested” from the voice on the other end of the line.

The phone rang three times before a clipped female voice answered, “J.T. Moran and Company, may I help you?”

Brian pulled the phone away from his ear and made a face at it as though looking down at the receiver might reveal if he’d gotten the number correct.

“Hello?” The voice said, tinged with annoyance.

“Hi, hello.” Brian coughed. “I got a call from this number. Is there a John there or?”

“There are several Johns, sir. Are you calling for Mr. Lipshultz? Or maybe Mr. Bender?”

“Mr…Mr. Bender,” Brian said, hardly believing himself as the words left his mouth. John Bender? Shermer’s very own John Bender? At some kind of New York City brokerage firm?

“Transferring you now. Please hold.”

“Thank—thank you.” The phone rang and rang until a voice that was unmistakably Bender’s said, “Go for Bender.”

“Bender?” said Brian. “It’s Brian Uh, Johnson. From school.”

“I know it’s you, Bri-aaan,” Bender said. He laughed. “My girl tells me who’s on the phone.”

“Your—your girl?”

“My secretary. Do they not have those in California?”

“Your secre—”

“Listen,” Bender cut him off. “I’m flying out tonight on the red eye and I thought, I should call up Brian Johnson. I should see how good old Brian Johnson is doing.”

“That’s…nice.”

“So listen, I’m thinking you should meet me for breakfast tomorrow and we can catch up. Old time’s sake, right?”

“Breakfast? It’s Tuesday. Tomorrow. I have to, uh, work. I have work.”

“Skip work.”

“That’s not really.” Brian laughed, more of a helpless exhalation then a real laugh. “I can’t just skip work.”

Bender did laugh. Full-on and jarring. “Same old Brian. Here, I’ll make this easy for you, repeat after me.” He pitched his voice a little bit high and a little bit nasal. “I’d love to meet you for breakfast, John. See you tomorrow at the Palace Hotel, San Francisco.” Bender’s voice dropped into its normal register. “I can’t hear you.”

Brian did as he was told.

“Pied Piper bar, 9AM. Okay, brainiac?”

“Okay.” Brian’s voice had gone very high. The Palace Hotel was a nice hotel. A really nice hotel.

“And Brian?” Bender sounded like he was on the verge of more laughter. “Breakfast is whiskey. See you in the AM.”

Bender hung up without waiting for an affirmative response and Brian was left with a dial tone and rising anxiety. It was possible he was going to be sick. Or maybe he was just going to pass out. Or possibly he was just going to get drinks with John Bender at 9AM in one of San Francisco’s nicest hotels. He needed to call his team lead. He needed to decide what to wear. He needed to figure out how to get there. And most of all, he needed to know why John Bender wanted to see him of all people.

He told himself to calm down.

“Hey Arthur,” he yelled, once his breathing had slowed. “Can I borrow your station wagon tomorrow?”

—

The Palace Hotel was _nice._ Brian knew this in the vague way that he knew caviar was salty and champagne was bubbly. Seeing it first hand, dropping off Art’s beat up Buick with the valet, feeling quite suddenly underdressed in his windbreaker, button down and khakis, it was now intimately known to him: the Palace was nice. Nicer than nice, posh, even. He scrubbed a self-conscious hand through his hair, which had grown out some since high school, and wondered idly if Bender would notice.

He wondered more acutely why exactly he was here at all.

A blandly polite young woman with fashionable hair directed him to the second floor when he asked at the front desk where the Pied Piper bar was located. In his anxiety, Brian thought he detected a vague hint of judgement from her, flitting her eyes from his scrubby curls to his trainers. He should have worn nicer shoes. He should have put on a blazer. Even the tweed one would have done. Brian hushed his internal misgivings with a firm thought. He was here now, and he would see this through. It would not be the first time he’d met a man in a bar at an off hour.

The Pied Piper bar, second floor of the Palace Hotel, was an understated affair only in the fact that it wasn’t gilded. There was a _lot_ of British racing green, leather, and deep, plush looking chairs. It had the feel of a gentleman’s club; he half expected to turn and find Sherlock Holmes in deep conversation with Doctor Watson. That sort of thing. If he’d had a mustache he’d twirl it.

There’s gold in them there hills, Brian thought. Except now the gold was technology, plastics, chips and bytes.

The room was very dim. A lone bartender in a vest and white shirt toiled alone behind the bar. He, too, looked like he would not have been out of place at an high-end Gold Rush saloon. Brian fidgeted on the threshold before he caught sight of a lone figure at the end of the bar. His eyes weren’t the best, but even from a distance the suit he wore looked expensive. His hair was cut short, parted to the side, and smoothed into place. Still looked kind of soft. Brian took a deep breath, and as though his gaze had been felt, the man turned and John Bender gave him a momentarily abashed half-smile. He waved.

Brian didn’t run, but he didn’t walk either. He also didn’t tug at his shirt or wet himself.

John Bender stood up to shake his hand. His grip was firm and his nails were clean and possibly painted in clear gloss that caught light when his hand gripped Brian’s. “Brian Johnson,” he said. “You actually came.”

“I did,” Brian said, sitting when Bender did.

“I almost sent a car for you. Limo, you know. Nothing too flash though.”

Brian arched an eyebrow as Bender said this. He had an air of practiced nonchalance, like he was play-acting and hadn’t settled on a role yet.

“A limo?” Brian repeated.

“Company dime.” Bender shrugged and his hand went to the rocks glass in front of him. He lifted it to his mouth and this time the light caught on his massive gold Rolex.

“You look good,” Brian said before he couldn’t.

It was Bender’s turn to raise an eyebrow. He smirked. He gave Brian an appraising look. How hadn’t Brian noticed before that his mouth was so bowed at the top and full at the bottom? On second thought, he had noticed; he’d just chosen not to. In fact, he’d chosen not to notice a lot of things, mostly about himself and what he noticed.

“Thanks, dork.” Bender smiled to ease the old moniker. “You, too. What are you drinking?”

“It’s, uh. It’s really early.”

“I didn’t ask what time it was.” _There_ was that old sharpness.

“Whiskey,” Brian amended. “Rocks, please.”

Bender called the bartender back with a wave and Brian took a moment to really take him in. Here was John Bender, a true contender for biggest fuck-up at Shermer, not dead or in prison, and not working in a—a shipyard or auto body shop, but rather wearing Drakkar Noir with pomade in his hair. Will wonders never cease? Asked Brian’s mother in his head.

His whiskey was placed in front of him—a generous pour—and while he took a tentative sip it appeared to be Bender’s turn to look.

“What. What brings you to San Francisco?”

“Oh, this and that,” Bender said.

“How did you find me?” He tried instead.

This made Bender smirk; it looked good on him too. Familiar. Except now Brian could place the feeling in his gut when Bender turned that expression on him. “A girl, actually. You knew her at school.”

“Missy Langham,” Brian said.

“Bingo. Couple dates with her, you know. She mentioned you by name, actually. When I said I was considering investments out here.”

“Investments.”

Bender preened a little. He tapped the side of his glass and said, “uh-huh,” in a wildly smug way like he was daring Brian to bring up his past. “Anyway, it wasn’t hard after that. Had Elsie call around a few of the bigger places. Apple, huh?”

“Apple, indeed.”

“Look at you, Bri-aaan. Right on the cutting edge. First time ever?”

Brian laughed. He thought about sex. He tried not to think about sex. He sipped his whiskey to cover his laugh. He was having a drink at 9AM with John Bender in a fancy San Francisco hotel. Speculative fiction couldn’t capture the irreality of it. “Not the first time,” he said.

“Is that right?” Bender’s expression hovered somewhere between keen and unsure. There was a question just forming in his mind and Brian could sense it coming together, unfolding itself.

For a moment they sat in silence sneaking looks at each other. Even Bender’s shoes were shiny. He really did look very, _very_ good.

“So you’re gay,” said Bender.

“Uh.”

“Missy said.”

“Oh.” Brian couldn’t exactly deny it. Missy was right, and he’d been the one to tell her. “Uh, yeah. Yes. I’m gay.”

Bender hummed, thoughtful. “You careful?”

“Fuck. I mean, yes. Yes.”

“Of course you are.” Bender sounded fond. “Listen, I’m staying here. And if you took the day—”

“Yes,” said Brian. “Absolutely yes.”

—

John Bender dropped to his knees for him the second they were through the hotel room door. He didn’t bother taking off his suit jacket; he just shoved Brian up against the wall and attacked his khakis like they personally offended him. “Look at these fucking—khakis. Christ, do you know how many times I thought—”

“You thought. You thought about my pants?”

Bender leered up at him before tugging down his pants. “Yeah, dork. I thought about your pants. What was in ‘em.”

“Me? What? You—” Brian’s head thunked back against the wall when Bender got a hand on him. He was hard. He’d been hard since they got in the elevator and it hit him like a fucking freight train that he was going up to John Bender’s room like he’d slipped into a motel in the Castro with some nameless pick-up. Which he’d done before. But this was _Bender_. “You—men?”

“Me, men,” said Bender, voice teasing, and swallowed Brian’s dick like his actual profession was cock sucking and not stocks, or bonds, or whatever. Or _whatever._

Brian touched his hair. It was so soft, a little slick. His mouth was slick and soft too, and he was making these _sounds_ , like he was enjoying himself, getting off on Brian’s dick in his mouth—which, obviously Brian hoped he was, but still. And his tongue was swirling around the head of Brian’s dick and it was frankly not the most expert blowjob Brian had ever gotten but the visual, the suit and Bender’s deep-set doe eyes, his broad nose nudging against Brian’s pubic hair unexpectedly—the whole thing was going to set Brian’s brain on fire. He tried to rein himself in, he went over the most recent code fix he was working on, anything to keep himself from going off so fast it would be embarrassing.

Bender leaned back to suck at the crown of Brian’s dick, to lick at him, get him wetter, and said, “you taste good, dork. I thought you would.”

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Brian moaned. It shouldn’t have been hot; but he liked the idea of tasting good. Of tasting good to John Bender.

His dick slid back into Bender’s mouth, and one of Bender’s hands came up to cup his balls and roll them gently in his palm, tugging just so, a point of contrast between the hot heat of his mouth. Bender bobbed his head, picking up the pace, tongue flat on the underside of Brian’s dick, his other hand a fist following his mouth each time he pulled back.

Brian was panting, using the wall and his hand on Bender’s head to keep himself from buckling altogether. His knees felt weak. He hadn’t been given a chance to feel self-conscious about his pale, shapeless legs.

“You gonna come for me?” Bender asked him, using just his hand so he could speak. His fist was nearly as good. Tight, perfect, and slippery with his own spit. “Go on. Let me see you. I came all this way.”

That’s what did it for Brian: the absurd notion that John Bender had come all the way to California to suck his dick. He managed to squeeze Bender’s shoulder in warning, and Bender was back to it just in time to devour Brian’s orgasm as it quaked through him. He swallowed.

The trust alone nearly made Brian come again as an aftershock.

“I like to get fucked,” he said. Bender was still on his knees. “You can do that, if you want.”

“How nice of you,” Bender said. He stood and took Brian’s face in his hands. They still hadn’t kissed but they did now. Brian loved the taste of himself in Bender’s mouth, on Bender’s tongue.

“Is that. A yes?” Even after that mind blowing display Brian still had this weird, pavlovian anxiety that he was about to be mocked and rejected.

“I’ve got a business dinner,” Bender said. The words were incongruous with his shiny, red mouth and ruffled hair. “But.” He shrugged off his jacket and went to unknot his tie. “I intend to spend the rest of today, fucking you.”

“Oh.” Brian laughed. His pants were still around his thighs.”

“Take all that off.” Bender pointed at him. “And get on the bed.”

Brian did exactly as he was asked. He was exceedingly good at that. “How long are you in town for?”

Bender’s smile was wolfish. “At least long enough to put a hitch in your step.”

“Oh my god.”

“And I hear there’s gold in them there hills.”


End file.
